(2024-05-22/25) Parisians with a metropolitan attitude probably don't care that their city was European Capital of Culture in 1989. Different in Marseille, where the citizens have seen a visible upturn in their city since its nomination in 2013. Of course, the poverty rate, the proportion of migrants and the crime rate are very high in Marseille. Nevertheless, the catamaran in the marina is called "joie de vivre" and the joie de vivre in the city is palpable. This also applies to my niece Isabelle and her husband Christophe, who invited me into their beautiful house at the foot of Notre-Dame de la Garde, the city's landmark, with such a great hospitality. Isabelle is the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of the butcher Abraham Fleischer from Tarnobrzeg in Poland.
In the 1940s, it was less about enjoying life and more about bare survival. In August 1940, the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC) commissioned the US journalist Varian Fry to travel to Marseille to set up a rescue network. He was originally supposed to rescue 200 anti-fascist intellectuals, but by the end of his mission there were around 2,000 people, including Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, Lion Feuchtwanger and numerous others. Many people know the series "Marseille" with Gérard Depardieu in the leading role, but only a few know the series "Transatlantic", also produced by Netflix; it is about the ERC and Varian Fry.
The US consulate stands on a square named after him and a memorial plaque in front of the consulate commemorates him. But Varian Fry was not alone, he had fellow fighters at his side, including the doctor and staunch communist Paul Schmierer. And where did Paul Schmierer come from? Right, you guessed it - from Czernowitz! The same Czernowitz in Bukovina where Isabelle's great-great-grandfather and my great-grandfather Mechel Fleischer ran a men's outfitting salon on Herrengasse.
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